Waterpointe doesn't allow single-family homes

From the Queens Tribune:

Whitestone resident Robert LoScalzo believes that despite the correction made in the September fact sheet, it’s impossible for the DEC to allow single-family homes on a Track 4 site, per the Department of State’s regulations. In a letter to the DEC, he cites one regulation that “the restricted residential use” denoted by Track 4 “shall at a minimum, include restrictions which prohibit…single family housing.”

“It’s right there in black and white,” LoScalzo said. “It just doesn’t seem to wash with what the regulation says.”

The DEC said that the certificate of completion for the remediation should be issued this year. Additionally, the agency is “establishing an escrow agreement with the developer to fund site management activities at this site for a period of 10 years in the amount of $272,000.” In the meantime, Sweeney said that the board has reached out to Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) seeking the only thing that will guarantee single-family homes at Waterpointe: a rezoning.

Katz FOILed again!

From the Queens Chronicle:

A Whitestone resident and media producer is suing the Office of the Queens Borough President and the borough president herself, Melinda Katz, alleging repeated violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Law for failing to respond to his requests for information concerning records related to the Willets Point neighborhood.

Robert LoScalzo, who says he has been working on an independent documentary about the Willets Point area since 2007, says he requested records concerning meetings held by Katz on Jan. 29 and March 3 of this year to discuss the deteriorated streets in the area, a possible city Department of Transportation contract to repave the streets for $9.1 million, waste-hauling tractor-trailers that park in the neighborhood and the status of its redevelopment.

LoScalzo says he made his initial FOIL request on May 12 and an appeal on June 4, and didn’t receive a reply to either one.

State law requires one within five business days, and a lack of response is tantamount to a denial, according to the state Committee on Open Government, which monitors compliance with the FOIL and Open Meetings Law. The only recourse available is to sue an agency.

A copy of the lawsuit says it was filed on Aug. 12 in state Supreme Court in Queens.

Katz’s office said it has not been served with any suit and wouldn't comment on pending litigation if it had, but that it has responded to the FOIL request. The office did not respond to a question about when the response was sent, and as of press time, LoScalzo said he hadn’t received a response.

In a sharply worded press release, LoScalzo accused Katz of hypocrisy and duplicity with the public.

“Just before this past Fourth of July weekend, Melinda Katz sent an email to her list, quoting loftily from the Declaration of Independence and imploring everyone to read America’s founding documents and get acquainted with our hard-won rights,” the release said in part.

“Ironically, when those of us who know our rights attempt to exercise them at Borough President Katz’s office by requesting public records, those rights are denied.”

Queens women to be honored with a planted ruin

City ignores public, proceeds with plan previously rejected by Helen Marshall

[This summarizes prior events concerning the Civic Virtue statue and the Queens Boulevard plaza site, then presents new information concerning a bidding process that closed on May 18, 2015 for work at the plaza site.]

2015 DDC Planted Fountain Specifications

I am Robert LoScalzo, the media producer/activist who sued the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (“DCAS”) in 2013 to force it to comply with the Freedom of Information Law and turn over records pertaining to the controversial removal of the colossal 22-ton artwork statue “Triumph of Civic Virtue” from the Queens Boulevard public plaza site where it had stood since 1941, to a private Brooklyn graveyard. DCAS had removed the statue without consulting Queens Community Board 9 and against the will of area residents and officials, who did not want the statue removed.

As you may recall, I am also the one who discovered and exposed that City taxpayers paid $49,464.00 for a fine art conservator to provide “all labor, materials and equipment necessary for the conservation of the Civic Virtue sculpture,” plus another $49,801.00 for a fine art handling company to provide “all labor, equipment and material necessary and required to design and fabricate a custom armature [cage] to support and lift the Civic Virtue statue for its relocation to the Green-Wood Cemetery.” Contrary to what the City led the public to believe at the time, it was unnecessary to relocate the Civic Virtue statue to Green-Wood Cemetery in order to repair and restore it – and taxpayers need not have incurred the additional $49,801.00 expense to do so. Queens lost a valuable art asset, although taxpayers footed the bill to restore it.

After the Civic Virtue statue was removed and the public wondered what would happen to the Queens Boulevard plaza site, I am also the one who unearthed the disappointing plan devised by DCAS to convert the statue’s fountain base into a “planted ruin.” According to plans dated April 2, 2013 (PDF attached), "DCAS wishes to keep the original fountain as a planted ruin, a scenic backdrop to a busy and important intersection in the borough. … [T]he fountain, although left as a 'ruin', will be planted with grades and groundcovers and act as a landscape folly to enhance this prominent corner."

2013 DCAS Planted Ruin Plan

DCAS’s “planted ruin” plan was ridiculed on the popular QueensCrap web site, which declared: “Planned ‘Civic Virtue’ replacement a total embarrassment.”

DCAS’s “planted ruin” plan was also rejected by Helen Marshall, then Queens Borough President. Marshall’s spokesman Dan Andrews said “renderings that were presented to Marshall ‘were not acceptable to the borough president.’ ‘She would like to see it as a place where people can sit and reflect on the contributions of different women whose names she had wanted engraved there,’ Andrews said. The proposed renderings, Andrews said, did not include the women's memorial. Marshall would also like the fountain to be restored at the site, but the renderings did not include it. They called for flower plantings instead.” DNA Info

Concerned about the lack of any public process to plan the use of the Queens Boulevard plaza site and to consider the potential return of the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue, on April 8, 2014 the Civic Virtue Task Force met with Barry Grodenchik, a top aide to Queens Borough President Melinda Katz (and now candidate for City Council District 23), and Nayelli Valencia Turrent, Katz’s Director of Cultural Affairs and Tourism, to discuss those issues. When Grodenchik asked if the Task Force had a “Plan B” in the event the statue would not be returned, the Task Force replied: “Institute a legitimate public process to plan the future use of the plaza site.” Grodenchik said he would discuss that with Katz and then get back to the Task Force. He never did.

On July 3, 2014 the Civic Virtue Task Force wrote to DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch about those same issues, asking (among other questions): “What opportunities are there for community input and planning, regarding the future use of the Plaza site and the potential return of Civic Virtue?” DCAS never answered the question, and never instituted any public planning process for the plaza site.

2015 DDC Planted Fountain Drawings

Which brings us to the news: My most recent Freedom of Information Law request to the Office of the Queens Borough President reveals that the NYC Department of Design and Construction (“DDC”) has already solicited bids for a project called “Planted Fountain Restoration” at the Queens Boulevard plaza site, the centerpiece of which is essentially the 2013 “planted ruin” plan devised by DCAS which Helen Marshall rejected. The deadline for contractors to submit bids for this work was May 18, 2015. As far as I am aware, this has not been reported anywhere.

According to the bid solicitation documents: “The project consists of creating a sitting area around the existing historic fountain. The fountain basin will be stabilized and waterproofed and turned into a planter, and the fountain steps will be reconstructed. Benches, lighting and pavement will be added to create an accessible plaza.”

2015 DDC Planted Fountain Plaque

The bid specifications also require a 9” x 18” bronze plaque displaying the inscription: “THIS FOUNTAIN PLAZA IS DEDICATED TO THE WOMEN OF QUEENS.”

A few observations:

• The bronze plaque refers to “this fountain plaza” – however, there won’t be any actual functioning fountain. What is left of the fountain will be buried under the flowers and plants. It is wrong to call this a “fountain plaza” when the fountain is in fact eliminated under this plan.

• The City is proceeding with this plan, despite not addressing reasons it was rejected by Helen Marshall. She had wanted the fountain to be restored, not planted over; and she had wanted the names of women engraved at the site.

• From the very beginning, the City’s plans to remove the Civic Virtue statue and to determine the future use of the plaza site have been secretly made by powers-that-be who have refused to implement any public planning process or to consider what the community and taxpayers actually want. DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch, DDC, Melinda Katz, Barry Grodenchik and Nayelli Valencia Turrent apparently are continuing this imperious policy of dictating the use of the plaza site and abandoning the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue in a private Brooklyn graveyard, contrary to what constituents and taxpayers want.

• The public has never asked for any planted ruin or dedication to women at the plaza site. On the other hand, the public has requested the return of the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue from its temporary loan to Green-Wood Cemetery.

• To be very clear: We could have had the newly-restored Civic Virtue statue returned to Queens Boulevard, standing on top of a newly-restored fountain base, with its waterworks turned on every day and fully operational – think mini “Trevi Fountain” on Queens Boulevard, and you get the idea. Instead, we’ll get a “planted ruin” and a bronze plaque, while the Civic Virtue statue – newly restored at taxpayer expense – remains abandoned in a private Brooklyn graveyard. That is lunacy, and an utter failure of Queens leadership.

• Melinda Katz laments the fact that Queens receives the lowest per capita Department of Cultural Affairs support among the boroughs. But by allowing a unique and colossal artwork such as Civic Virtue to be taken from the borough to a graveyard, to be replaced by a mediocre “planted ruin,” Queens only proves the borough’s true status as the laughingstock of this City’s cultural affairs.

The NYC Public Design Commission (PDC) may still have to approve any plan for the plaza site. A cursory review of all PDC agendas at the PDC web site from the year 2012 to the present time did not show any Queens Boulevard plaza site renovation on any PDC meeting agenda.

Questions Raised:

(1) If Helen Marshall rejected the “planted ruin” concept, and DCAS and DDC are now proceeding with essentially that plan, has Melinda Katz approved it? Or are DCAS and DDC doing whatever they want at the plaza site?

(2) Which contractor firm is the winning bidder for the “Planted Fountain” work at the plaza site? What is the total price of the winning bid? Has a contract actually been awarded and executed yet?

(3) Has the Public Design Commission approved the plans for the fountain/plaza? If not, when will it?

(4) Presuming that the PDC must approve any plan for the plaza site but has not yet done so, why would DCAS and DDC solicit bids for a specific plan for the plaza site, without first obtaining PDC’s approval of that plan?

Willets ramps need “Re-evaluation”

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) have determined that changes to the proposed Willets Point development – including the recent addition of a 1.4 million square foot “Willets West” mega-mall on parkland, and the expansion of the total size of the project from 62 acres to 108.9 acres – may require a “Re-evaluation” of the Environmental Assessment prepared in 2011 by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) in support of new access ramps to and from the Van Wyck Expressway to enable the project. Such a re-evaluation by the FHWA and NYSDOT could necessitate the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement, and spur new legal challenges by project opponents who have always called the ramps the project’s Achilles heel.

For its part, NYCEDC has long asserted that new Van Wyck access ramps are necessary precursors to the full development of the 62 acre Willets Point site – including the 5,000+ units of housing that were touted as the project’s linchpin. But other expert analyses have shown that the proposed new ramps can never adequately address the very severe traffic congestion that a developed Willets Point will impose on the Van Wyck Expressway, the Whitestone Expressway and other nearby highways and local roads.

Back in 2010, the New York Times exposed state officials’ “frustration with the city’s inability to provide reliable information and the pressure it was placing on them to expedite their analysis” of the proposed Van Wyck ramps.

In 2011, NYCEDC submitted a draft Environmental Assessment for the ramps to NYSDOT and FHWA. A very contentious public hearing was held, at which numerous Queens civic associations expressed opposition to the ramps and the questionable traffic analyses, and called for an independent expert review of the future traffic impacts. However, NYSDOT and FHWA arranged no such review.

Instead, in early 2012, NYSDOT and FHWA affirmed the Environmental Assessment, which then became the basis of a “Finding Of No Significant Impact” (FONSI) issued by the FHWA, concluding that constructing the Van Wyck ramps will have “no significant effect on the human environment.” Issuing the FONSI means that no Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) will ever be prepared for the proposed ramps.

But the Environmental Assessment and the FONSI are based upon analyses of traffic associated with the 62 acre Willets Point development that NYCEDC had promoted up until mid-2012. Just weeks after the FHWA issued the FONSI, then-Mayor Bloomberg announced the expansion of the Willets Point project to include a 1.4 million square foot “Willets West” mega-mall on parkland located west of Citi Field stadium. Adding the mega-mall nearly doubles the total size of the project from 62 acres as originally promoted, to 108.9 acres as NYCEDC now intends. It also increases the total amount of retail space at the site from 1,700,000 square feet, to 2,650,000 square feet. NYSDOT and FHWA never considered the traffic impacts of any such mega-mall, when evaluating the proposed Van Wyck ramps which enable the development.

When Mayor Bloomberg announced the vastly expanded project, Willets Point United, a coalition of area property and business owners, wrote to the FHWA:

“FHWA’s approval of the Van Wyck ramps and the FONSI is explicitly based on an Environmental Assessment for the prior project. That approval and FONSI, and the Environmental Assessment on which they are based, are no longer applicable because they were for a different project than is now being planned, and they should be withdrawn. The FHWA must do a new environmental review for the same reasons that the City is now doing a supplemental EIS.”

FHWA and NYSDOT emails recently obtained by documentary video producer Robert LoScalzo show that beginning in late 2012, NYSDOT required that NYCEDC explain the ways in which the revised Willets Point development (including the “Willets West” mega-mall) differs from the development as originally proposed and that was the basis of the ramps’ Environmental Assessment and FONSI. NYCEDC responded by directing NYSDOT to the project’s full Supplemental EIS, and later by providing a four page “Summary of changes in the Willets Point Development Plan and the Willets Point FSEIS.” The FHWA then requested that NYCEDC “prepare a table illustrating the current changes to the Willets Point Development Plan Project versus what was approved in the March 2012 NEPA Environmental Assessment,” and NYCEDC provided such a table on September 23, 2014.

A week later, on September 30, 2014, Uchenna Madu, NYSDOT Director of Planning and Project Development, wrote to Thomas McKnight, NYCEDC Executive Vice President:

“We have reviewed the summary of changes to the Willets Point Development Plan SEIS compared to the March 2012 EA FONSI issued by the FHWA. Our initial assessment is that a Re-evaluation of the 2012 Environmental Assessment would be required. We will follow up with you for an in-person meeting in the coming week with FHWA staff, NYSDOT and if you wish to bring in your Environmental Consultants (I believe AKRF).”

All of this begs the questions:

• If the FHWA and NYSDOT are “Re-evaluating” the Environmental Assessment because its data is no longer accurate due to the project’s expansion, has the FONSI issued in 2012 been rescinded? 
• Will the FHWA and NYSDOT finally require a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Van Wyck ramps? 
• And, are the ramps now considered unapproved – meaning there is no clear path at the moment to develop all of Willets Point?

Rally in the works to bring Civic Virtue back to borough hall

From the Forum:

Time has not put a damper on the fight to bring Civic Virtue back to Kew Gardens and advocates said they were planning a major rally for the cause.

Richard Iritano, leader of the Civic Virtue Task Force, said he and his team were making hundreds of phone calls and emails to organize one a massive effort against the removal of the historic statue and call for its immediate return to the front of Borough Hall. After months of waiting for letters of support and other commitments from Queens elected officials, Iritano said he was ready to press forward alone if he needed to.

“We want this to be a democratic process and so far, we’re not getting any cooperation,” Iritano said. “Where are the letters of support? We will move ahead with this rally with or without them.”

Now, the activist said he hoped to see those same elected officials come back to supporting the cause as he and his task force assemble another massive rally for next month.

“The consensus has long been established. We want it back,” Iritano said. “There still seems to be all these delays and stall tactics coming from those in office.”

Robert LoScalzo, a documentary filmmaker and member of the task force, learned through a Freedom of Information Law Request that $49,464 city dollars went towards the restoration work of the statue and another $49,801 paid for its transportation.

Katz brushes off FOIL request

July 11, 2014

Elisa Velazquez, Esq.
Counsel to the Borough President
Office of the Queens Borough President
120-55 Queens Boulevard
Kew Gardens, New York 11424-1015

Re: Pending Records Access Request dated May 23, 2014

Dear Ms. Velazquez:

On May 23, 2014, I submitted a records access request (“Request”), made pursuant to the New York State Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”), which seeks, in rough summary, minutes of Queens Borough Board meetings held between December, 2013, inclusive, and April, 2014, inclusive. Pursuant to the New York State Open Meetings Law, those are public records, subject to public access. (See POL § 106(3).) On May 27, 2014, the Request was delivered.

On June 3, 2014, you replied via letter (duplicate attached) which states in relevant part: “… we are in the process of locating and reviewing the documents responsive to your request and will forward same to you within the next two (2) weeks.”

Contrary to that assurance, no records were produced to me within two weeks, or at any other time thereafter. Indeed, I have received no further communication from you or from anyone else at the Office of the Queens Borough President concerning the FOIL Request.

On June 23, 2014, I wrote to you (duplicate letter attached) in an attempt to ascertain the status of the pending Request. I noted that “more than two weeks have passed, and I [have] not received any records or further correspondence,” and I requested that you “please send the responsive records or at least notify me of your intention regarding the Request.” On June 24, 2014, said letter was delivered.

As of this writing, I have not received any response from you to my letter dated June 23, 2014; and I still have not received any records or further communication in response to my FOIL Request – constituting failure by the Office of the Queens Borough President to comply with FOIL.

The Freedom of Information Law exists because “[t]he people's right to know the process of governmental decision-making and to review the documents and statistics leading to determinations is basic to our society” and because “a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public.” (See POL § 84.) It is not acceptable and very disappointing, that the Office of Queens Borough President Melinda Katz thwarts the intent of FOIL, by not producing records or even communicating as required to resolve a records access request; and moreover, by not responding to a requestor’s written attempt to follow up.

I kindly request – again – that the Office of the Queens Borough President please immediately produce to me the records that are responsive to my Request.

Sincerely,

Robert LoScalzo

2 enclosures

cc: Robert Freeman, Esq.
Executive Director
New York State Committee on Open Government

Camille Jobin-Davis, Esq.
Assistant Director
New York State Committee on Open Government

Letter_140623

Letter_140603

Julissa got ripped a new one at CB4

From the Queens Chronicle:

After a somewhat fiery debate at Community Board 4’s February meeting regarding the ongoing Willets Point saga, Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) appeared at Tuesday’s session to discuss the project, as requested last month.

A number of Willets Point advocates also appeared, speaking harshly about Ferreras during the public forum portion of the meeting and emotionally about the project that has impacted hundreds of business owners.

However, Ferreras had left the meeting almost an hour before her critics could speak out against the proposed shopping mall, the subject of a new lawsuit filed by state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), activists and Willets Point business owners.

“She is here to put over her own views on this, and to frankly create the false impression that people should love this project,” Robert LoScalzo, a documentary filmmaker covering the Willets Point plan, said after the meeting. “The elephant in the room was the open question of why this community board did not get any say in evaluating or approving the actual mall on the parkland. The councilwoman came here tonight and discussed everything but that.”

Ferreras did not speak about the upset owners, the mall or the lawsuit, angering Ben Haber, a Willets Point advocate who spoke during the public forum.

“Are you aware that in regard to the 1.4 million-square-foot shopping mall, that you had no say? It was never part of [the Uniformed Land Use Procedure] and was snuck in through the back door,” Haber told the board. “How many people think [the mall] is a good idea? You were deprived by your City Council member of any say in the matter.”

One board member out of the nearly 30 present raised his hands in response to Haber’s question.

Many Willets Point owners have been upset with what they see as Ferreras’ hands-off approach in regards to the litigious project, but in a phone interview on Wednesday, she defended her actions, saying she has always been supportive of those impacted by the massive undertaking.

City paid to repair and remove Civic Virtue

From the Times Ledger:

Taxpayers shelled out $100,000 to clean the exiled Triumph of Civic Virtue statue and help move it from its perch outside Borough Hall to a private cemetery in Brooklyn late last year, city contracts show.

The Department of Citywide Administrative Services banished the neglected statue to Green-Wood Cemetery in Kings County in December, justifying the move by saying private dollars would be used for upkeep.

But before the relocation, the city inked a $50,000 contract with Pennslyvania-based Kreilick Conservation to provide conservation and preservation treatment to the controversial sculpture, which included cleaning the entire piece and patching cracks with faux stone material.

The department paid another roughly $50,000 to Washington, D.C.-based Surroundart to build a custom steel cage that lifted the 17-ton artwork off its base in December, according to documents provided to TimesLedger Newspapers.

The contracts were given to TimesLedger by Queens activist and filmmaker Robert LoScalzo, who is currently suing to try and obtain communications between the city and the cemetery.

“This asset — that is no longer an asset to Queens — has been essentially privatized in Brooklyn with little to no explanation to the public and against the wishes and protests of everyone,” he said.

An indefinite loan agreement between the city and Green-Wood estimated the cemetery would pay $165,000 for transportation and $27,500 to put a protective coat on the statue. The cemetery will also build a new base for Civic Virtue, since its Borough Hall perch, including the fountain and underground plumbing, was also in need of repair, the city said. Green-Wood could not provide TimesLedger with the actual cost nor how much it would spend on long-term preservation.

LoScalzo has a hunch the taxpayers’ money could have been better spent refurbishing the statue at its former Borough Hall home, and hopes a judge will force the city’s hand to release communications between the department and Green-Wood Cemetery to find out more.

“It’s not lost on me the symbolic significance that a statue representing the triumph of civic virtue over vice and corruption is not welcome in our borough,” he said.

Someone is suing to get Fat Boy back

From the Daily News:

A Queens-based filmmaker has sued the city over its hastily-enacted plan to pluck a deteriorating statue off Queens Blvd. and move it to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Robert LoScalzo claims the city has refused to turn over emails and other communications involving the removal of the Triumph of Civic Virtue from its longtime perch outside Queens Borough Hall.

“There are still too many unanswered questions,” said Jon Torodash, a Kew Gardens resident who led a campaign to keep the statue in Queens and is working with LoScalzo on the legal action. “How was a heavy construction project like this done in quick secrecy?”

Plans to move the statue were unveiled during a little-known Design Commission meeting in November, when most civic leaders and lawmakers were focused on recovery efforts after Superstorm Sandy.

One month later, the statue was moved to Green-Wood.

Cemetery officials said all of the conservation work on the statue has been completed and it is awaiting a new granite base.

Great, now you can bring it back to where it belongs.

USTA doesn't actually need to take parkland to expand (it just wants to)

Ladies and gentlemen, in light of the following, it's hard to imagine any elected official (who is not on the take) being in favor of handing over more parkland to the USTA. If they don't actually need it, why should we give it to them? - QC

Testimony of Robert LoScalzo  to Queens Borough President Helen Marshall  concerning the proposed expansion of the  United States Tennis Association National Tennis Center  within Flushing Meadows Corona Park, April 4, 2013
"I am Robert LoScalzo, a resident of Queens. I'm opposed to unnecessarily sacrificing even more parkland to the USTA. I am very concerned that you may not be aware, that USTA is perfectly capable of renovating its facilities while keeping within its present footprint, and NOT expanding onto even more parkland.

USTA's EIS for this project (chapter 17) sets forth two options – the "Alternative Without Additional Park Land" and the "Alternative Without New Park Land Alienation" – either of which would rebuild the USTA stadiums, in place.

So if you're in favor of creating construction and trade jobs, those two reasonable options would absolutely do so, and would also satisfy USTA's desire for new, state-of-the-art facilities – without further encroaching into Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

USTA's self-serving conclusion is that rebuilding within its current footprint is not acceptable to USTA.

USTA wants more parkland, for two main reasons:

Number One:

To increase the width of a walkway inside the tennis center, to provide a more luxurious experience for tennis people during just two weeks of the U.S. Open. If that walkway really isn't wide enough, U.S. Open fans would have testified at the public hearings in support of widening it. They haven't. Solving a non-existent problem two weeks out of the year does not justify sacrificing sacred parkland

Number Two:

USTA wants to increase attendance at the U.S. Open by 10,000 more people every day. But who says that we want 10,000 more people there, or that it's even reasonable to put them there?

The impacts of those people are very significant.

A very large number of them will travel by car, taxi or limousine. Here are two photographs showing the effects on Roosevelt Avenue during the 2012 U.S. Open. Two entire lanes are coned off – one in each direction – to accommodate drop-off and pick-up of tennis people.



This situation is already very bad – but USTA wants to attract another 10,000 people here per day? By the way, these conditions on Roosevelt are right next to the proposed site of the Mets mall in the Citi Field parking lot – which would be the largest mall in New York City. How can you reconcile commandeering Roosevelt Avenue like this, with the simultaneous traffic to be generated by a huge mall, right here?

The prestige of the U.S. Open is already well established. It does not depend on whether 10,000 more people attend it.

This USTA proposal, like the two others that impinge on our park, areefforts to close deals on parkland while the Bloomberg administration is still around to sign the papers. Please do right by the people of Queens: Tell USTA to renovate within its existing space, and reject its self-serving application to expand its size and its impacts.

Thank you."

Robert LoScalzo
Whitestone, New York

(excerpts from the EIS available here.)

On top of all this, the Borough Board, which does not have to weigh in on the USTA expansion under the rules of ULURP, plans to take a vote on the matter and make a recommendation Monday despite not holding a public hearing, which is required.

The information in the USTA's EIS directly contradicts Danny Zausner testimony from February 18 when he stated, “We can't physically replace these two stadium without taking this asphalt strip and turning it into a landscape buffer."

Why did CB3 try to meet in secret about the USTA project?

From the Queens Chronicle:

Community Board 3’s March 13 public hearing featured the expected theatrics of a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure applicant presenting a contentious plan for Flushing Meadows Corona Park: angry statements, slideshow presentations and the odd round of applause.

But there was a second show going on. In the idealistic world of open meetings, laws and light being shone on public documents, CB 3 has been the oddball.

The all-volunteer board has a history of thwarting press attempts for access to documents, and even for taking photos at meetings.

During its vote on the United States Tennis Association’s expansion within the park, Chairwoman Marta Lebreton took to hiding behind a sheet of paper when a camera lens faced her direction.

Fair game. But Lebreton also rebuffed a Chronicle editor who asked to obtain a copy of the motion voted on that evening by the board.

The state Open Meetings Law says all documents discussed at open meetings must be available, though a board can charge a “reasonable” fee for copies.

The board’s attempts to limit public access allegedly go beyond holding back records. Two parks advocates have filed a complaint against the board for allegedly acting unlawfully.

A letter from Robert LoScalzo and Alfredo Centola, addressed to Queens Community Board Director Barry Grodenchik, claims the board did not properly alert the public or press about a committee meeting on the USTA proposal held March 5.



A review of the board’s website shows no record of the meeting.

Geoffrey Croft, the president of NYC Park Advocates, plans to file a complaint later this week.

“If they have a website and it’s easy to post, and they do not, then that would be failure to comply with the law,” said Robert Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government.

The letter goes on to say that a CB 3 staff member told LoScalzo and Centola, “There is not a meeting.” When they followed up, a staff member said “[I’m] not allowed to say anything.”

CB3 Telephone Transcript EXCERPTS

The Open Meetings Law’s provisions on meeting notification are threefold — community boards must give notice of meetings to media outlets, designated public locations and, if possible, put them online.

Additionally, the complaint alleges the board did not give documents to the public and attempted to prevent photography.

LoScalzo and Centola ask in their letter that Lebreton be removed from the board and District Manager Giovanna Reid be formally disciplined.

The letter has been referred to the borough president’s board and a response has been requested from CB 3, Queens borough president spokesman Dan Andrews said.

“We got a seven-page letter alleging certain things. We are doing what we should be doing. We reached out to our legal person. These are allegations,” Andrews said.

The borough president’s board has authority over Lebreton, but not Reid, who is an employee of CB 3.



This is a photo of Barry Grodenchik talking over the situation with Giovanna Reid and Marta Lebreton, who couldn't hide from the camera this time. Barry, you better do something about this. You're currently in charge of community boards and running for borough president, after all, and you don't want potential voters to think you support dishonest practices. We're certainly going to be staying on top of this one.

Remember, folks, the government has the responsibility to let the sunshine in, but since they can't be trusted, it falls on us to make sure they do. Did the CB's marching orders come from Julissa or Barry? We'll get to the bottom of it. Everybody sing!